The Life Expectancy Gap Between Men and Women Widened to 5.8 Years Due to COVID-19 and Drug Overdoses
A new report has found that the life expectancy gap between women and men in the United States has expanded to 5.8 years between 2010 and 2021. This is the biggest difference in longevity between the sexes in decades and researchers are attributing it to disparities from COVID-19 and drug overdose deaths.
The study, published Monday in the JAMA Internal Medicine journal, examined how COVID-19 and other underlying causes of death widened the gap from 2010 to 2021. While distinct cardiovascular and lung cancer death rates have long been prime explanations for why women outlive men in the U.S., researchers said other leading causes of death are responsible and that multiple factors are widening the gap.
For U.S. men between 2010 and 2019, higher mortality rates for diabetes, heart disease, unintentional injuries, homicide, and suicide were the main drivers for the life expectancy gap. Part of the gap was minimized by similar mortality rates between men and women from cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.
However, differences in mortality rates from COVID-19 became the leading reason the gap widened between men and women during the pandemic, which began in 2020. In 2021, COVID-19 killed 131 per 100,000 U.S. men but only 82 per 100,000 U.S. women, the study said.
Men were also twice as likely to die due to unintentional injuries – primarily drug overdoses – than women in 2010 and are even more likely to in 2021. “This analysis finds that COVID-19 and the drug-overdose epidemic were major contributors to the widening gender gap in life expectancy in recent years,” the study authors wrote.
The overall life expectancy dropped over a year and a half down to 76.1 years in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. American life expectancy fell over two and a half years since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The U.S. Census Bureau projects that women will continue to outlive men for the rest of the century, according to new population estimates. This report sheds light on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and drug overdoses on the life expectancy gap between men and women and the broader implications for public health in the United States.